(cache)Instagram

chrisbrayphotography

Chris Bray

🦘 Australian Geographic photographer.
📷 Lumix Global Ambassador.
✈️ Spots left: Alaska Aug 2027 🐻

And she’s safely aboard! SpaceX Starship40 was successfully towed over in position ontop of the submerged deck of Forte, who then rose up beneath the rocket! What amazing coordination of so many moving parts by so many teams! Well done all! Very cool to witness in my backyard!

Now it looks like a comically oversized missile.

#spacex #starship #starship40 #christmasisland #forte

SpaceX’s Starship40 recovery is in full swing here in my backyard of Christmas Island! They’ve lowered the Forte ship and are towing the rocket over onto the cradle they have built now, and will then re-float the ship, and head off to USA! Amazing to witness!

#spacex #starship #forte #starship40 #christmasisland @spacex @elonmusk

A floating spaceship!?! 🚀🌊 Not something I ever expected to see! This SpaceX Starship was towed into the protected waters around Christmas Island this morning after an unusually gentle landing in the Indian Ocean almost a month ago left it unexpectedly floating and potentially recoverable instead of the usual explosion! Cool to see! So BIG!

My kind of photo tour. Who wants to come? Sri Lanka and India, next Feb. I promise you’ll love it:

A captivating visual journey to photograph the best of Sri Lanka’s vibrant wildlife and culture, then top it off with six nights in India for tigers, complete with a VIP multi-zone pass to ensure we get the best access! This exciting 14-night itinerary has it all, from a hot air balloon flight and unbelievable wildlife and landscapes, to boutique and 5-star accommodation! We’ll spend solid time in the best national parks for Asian elephants, sloth bears, leopards, tigers, monkeys, deer, birds etc, go on night walks for Loris and other nocturnal wildlife, visit historic Buddhist temples, do a Lightroom tutorial, photo review, etc. In Sri Lanka we’ll be driven around by our professional, friendly guides in two spacious Mercedes Benz vans (except for where we swap to 3-wheeled tuk-tuks to access a remote train bridge!), and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how peaceful and relaxing it is where we stay in India. We choose Bandhavgarh National Park not just because it has the highest tiger density, but it’s also beautifully managed, incredibly scenic and diverse, and much quieter than the hectic, over-crowded parks like Ranthambore closer to New Delhi. Bursting with new animals, sights, flavours, cultures and experiences across two unique countries, this amazing photo tour will fill you up with new photos and memories for life.

#phototour #srilankawildlifephotography #indianwildlife #tigerphotography #learnphotography

Finally going through my pics from this year’s Sri Lanka & India tour - found this snap of a tiger through some foliage. Thoughts? I feel he’s kinda disengaged (no eye contact or doing anything epic) but it’s maybe also nice to just see a tiger chilling in what is clearly his natural wild habitat, rather than the perfect portrait? Or maybe I’m just jealous that he didn’t look at me? Haha

Shot on my trusty @Lumix G9II dialed in at 1/800th sec (which in hindsight is a little faster than I needed, but it only pushed my ISO to 800 so nothing too serious but 1/400th sec would have been fine and only would have only required ISO 400), 280mm (being my Leica 200mm f/2.8 lens with a 1.4x extender on which makes it 280mm, although on a micro four thirds body which gives awesome 2x crop factor this becomes 560mm effective!) and of course dialed to my smallest f being f/4 in this case as the 1.4x extender pushes this lens’s smallest f from 2.8 out to f/4. Not only does the smallest f help get as much light in there as possible for fastest shutter speed with minimal ISO but also helps blur foreground/background with a small depth of field to help isolate our subject, although minimal effect when he’s leaning against the background!

Next tour 17th Feb 2027, places available.

#lumix #tiger #indianwildlife #bigcat #phototour

With a 1m leg span, the Coconut Crab (AKA Robber Crab) is the world’s largest land-living invertebrate. They can live for 80+ years, and with over 40% of their brain dedicated to tracking down even the faintest smell, even though they move slowly, they WILL find your lunch eventually. And, once they get a hold of it in those massive claws (which are strong enough to rip the husk off a coconut then crunch through its shell) there’s nothing you can do - except marvel at just how amazing these colorful creatures are!

#coconutcrab #weirdanimals #natureisamazing #oceanlife #wildlife

She came to say hi, then went for my @GoPro 🐢 I withdrew a little and she swam right back for seconds — this curious little Hawksbill was not shy! Freediving in Flying Fish Cove tonight and moments like this in my backyard are why I never take living here for granted 😍 #hawksbillturtle #freediving #christmasisland #turtlesofinstagram #underwaterphotography

No doors. No music. Just you hanging out of a helicopter above Iceland & Greenland. One spot just opened — July 2027. #doorsoffhelicopter #icelandphotography #greenland

This is what my brain is usually doing when I am trying to focus 🤣 #adhd #beeeater #birdsofinstagram #wildlifephotography @lumix @lumix_au

Did you know some of the chonky little, critically endangered, flying teddy bears on my island home of Christmas Island have PUPS at the moment?! 🥰 Ever since I heard bat-mums fly around with their young hanging onto them, I’ve always wanted to try and get a photo. Apparently they only do this for 3-6 weeks, by which time the pup is over 1/3 of the weight of the mum - she then leaves it in a tree and forages without it.

I’ve ventured out with my camera a few times, but never found any with pups. Then, I saw my first on Friday, but only had two days of terrible weather to try and get some pics before I flew out on Sunday to head to my Sri Lanka and India photo tour. Ideally I wanted golden evening lighting and the pup awake, gazing down in wonder… but all I got was wind and rain and these 3 rather lack-luster photos, but it turns out they may in fact be the first photos ever taken of the Christmas Island flying fox in flight, carrying her pup! So cool! I hope there are still some being carried around when I get home, but I’ll be away for a couple of months so...?

FYI these are about 1/1300th sec, f/4, ISO 3200 with a Panasonic Leica 200mm prime lens + 1.4x tele, on a Lumix G9II micro four thirds sensor so, 560mm equiv. Shot at almost +3 exposure compensation, and shadows still heavily lifted in post, along with de-noise etc.

@lumix @lumix_au #flyingfox #ciff #bats #batsofinstagram #flyingteddybear

🔈🌿💦🐻🐟 Enjoy sounds of a huge brown bear wandering right up to you and catching a salmon.

Places left of my Alaska photo tour August 2027.

#bear #wildlife #wildlifephotography #brownbear

Camera settings: I scrolled my aperture up to f/10 for a bigger Depth of Field so that the elephants and Mount Kilimanjaro would all be in focus, and set my shutter speed to be 1/640th sec which is plenty to freeze ambling wildlife like this. I checked my autoISO was only needing ISO640 for these settings which I’m totally happy with (if it was way higher iso and I was worried about iso-noise/quality, then I’d have used a little slower shutter speed would still have been fine here maybe down to 1/250th, and/or slightly smaller f/# if really needed, although despite being wide-ish lens (Leica 12-60mm) I had it zoomed in to 60mm (which is 120mm effective on this 2x crop body) so if I’d gone much smaller than f/10 I worry the background would start to be soft) but I knew ISO 640 on my @Lumix GH6 would be fine so I was happy with my settings.

Exposure bias I had dialed up a bit to +2/3 as it’s supposed to be quite a bright scene with all that pale grass and bright sky etc, +/- 0 would have looked a bit dull, and being a mirrorless I could see the exposure in real time with my histogram and had it set so it was nice and bright but not so bright that I was blowing out the highlights (I have a free tutorial on understanding histograms on my website).

Then with settings sorted I just folded the screen out so I could see what was in shot and lent my camera as far down out of the safari vehicle as I could to help get a better perspective on these elephants and make them rise up higher against the mountain, and started taking shots!

Every frame has different leg and trunk placements and separation (or lack of) between the heard, and so I took quite a few and liked this one best. Some ‘dehaze’ tweaking in Lightroom helped bring out the mountain a bit more through the haze, a little bit of a crop, and… yeah. Nice enough! Not much of that glacier left on top hey!

Still a couple of spots to join me for my 2wk kenya photo tour this September, and I also just opened dates for September 2027 too! Jammed full of so many epic experiences like doors-off helicopters etc these trips are one of my favorite photo tours on Earth: this September will be my 27th! Join me!

@lumix_au

Get the full experience

Sign up for Instagram